


a strange impression in my head

by evewithanapple



Category: The Black Tapes Podcast
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-14
Updated: 2018-04-14
Packaged: 2019-04-22 19:55:59
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,480
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14316012
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/evewithanapple/pseuds/evewithanapple
Summary: Dreams are easily explicable. A psychological function of the subconscious. Until they aren't.





	a strange impression in my head

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Apricot](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Apricot/gifts).



It starts with a dream.

As a general rule, dreams are not something that Strand pays a great deal of attention to. Theories about clairvoyancy and precognition have, he knows, been thoroughly and widely debunked; dreams are nothing more than the mental detritus of the day, swept up and blended into a viscous, unintelligible stew. Trying to divine meaning from dreams is a fool’s errand, and Strand does not consider himself a fool. Ergo, he does not trouble himself with worrying about dreams.

But. This dream.

This dream is different.

It starts – as a good deal of his dreams do, these days – in the Pacific Northwest Studios offices. He’s sitting across a table from Alex; their conversation is vague, drifting from topic to topic without any sense of cohesion. That’s not out of the ordinary, for a dream. He does find his dream-self unusually conscious of Alex’s clothing – a boat-neck shirt, jeans, and flats – and specifically the way one of her shoulders has slipped free of its cotton covering, bared to the air of the room. There’s a tiny constellation of freckles there; if he had to identify them, he’d say that they resembled the shape of Andromeda, Ptolemy’s astronomical princess of Aethiopia. The fact that he can even discern the shape of Alex’s freckles, let alone make the mental connection to a celestial body, _does_ strike him briefly as odd – but as always, logic slips from his fingers as he dreams. The _why_ does not matter. What matters is the _now_.

“Dr. Strand?” His dream-self blinks, and Alex is suddenly in front of him, close enough that he could reach out and trace the contours of her collarbone if he so wished. In the dream, she is very warm, and smells faintly of patchouli. His want is neither willful nor conscious; it simply _is_ , and without any waking inhibitions, he wastes no time in pulling her to him. Alex tightens her legs around his waist, gripping him with her thighs and pressing her mouth to a spot just under his ear. Her shoulder is now in his direct line of vision, and with no obstruction presenting himself, he closes his mouth over her freckles; Andromeda under his tongue, the taste of sweat and salt. Alex gasps, grinding down on his lap. The friction of his slacks against his erection is nearly unbearable. He reaches for the button of her jeans –

\- and blinks awake, suddenly, in the darkness of his bedroom.

He would be lying if he said that the dream didn’t trouble him somewhat, but he tries to put it out of his mind. Certainly, there is a logical explanation; he spends a great deal of time with Alex, ergo it makes sense that his subconscious would attach itself to her image. And dreams about sex are hardly an uncommon phenomenon. He is, after all, a heterosexual man; even if he hasn’t indulged in desire for a number of years, the animal of his brain still craves intimacy. With both these factors in play, it’s no surprise that he would dream of Alex. It might make their meetings slightly uncomfortable, but discomfort can be managed. It’s no great hardship.

Except that it happens again.

This second dream picks up where the first left off, with Alex sitting astride him in the office chair, her arms wound around his neck. His hands slide up under her shirt and over the thin fabric of her bra, rubbing his thumbs over her nipples and hearing her gasp in his ear in response. She rises and falls in his lap, rocking against him as she whimpers with frustration, pulling at the buttons on his shirt as she tries to rip it open. Strand is in a similar state, fumbling to unbutton both her jeans and his slacks and succeeding in doing neither. In all their tussling, they tip the chair over entirely, and end up sprawled across the floor. Alex is underneath him, eyes wide, every breath pushing her chest up against his. She takes advantage of her new position to pull his shirt free of his slacks and run her hands up and down his sides. The light touch makes him shiver. With a growl, he bites down on her shoulder again, and her hands tighten on his back. She surges up against him, and the softness of her nearly undoes him then and there. He grabs at the button of her jeans again, this time finally managing to loosen it and shove the offending garment down around her knees. She kicks it the rest of the way off. His slacks are the next to go, and from there it’s quick work to push both of their underwear out of the way, and finally, _finally_ –

When he wakes up this time, he can feel his erection straining against his pajama bottoms. He swears softly (a forgivable lapse in decorum, as there’s no one around to hear him) and takes himself in hand, finishing with a few quick strokes. If he thinks of Alex as he does so, that too is forgivable.

 

* * *

 

It happens again. And again. And _again_. Each successive dream seems to grow more detailed and more erotic, and they’re starting to drive him mad. He feels like a teenager again, dogged with lust at every step, unable to concentrate on anything other than images of Alex that haunt him when he closes his eyes. Alex pulling her shirt up over her head to reveal her breasts, Alex pressed flat against a wall as she hitches her legs around his waist, Alex on her knees, cheeks hollowed out, her mouth around his cock. It’s nearly impossible to write, or to lecture, or to analyze the tapes; the tiniest reminder brings all his dreams flooding back to the front of his consciousness, demanding all of his attention. He’s starting to wish that the paranormal was real; then he might be able to find some supernatural solution to his predicament. As it is, he thinks his subconscious might be out to ruin his life.

Meeting directly with Alex is, unsurprisingly, the hardest part. It’s difficult to banish his nocturnal visions of her when she’s sitting right in front of him, shoulders exposed (his dream had been accurate; he can see the cluster of freckles) hair loose around her face, mouth stained cherry-pink with some kind of lipstick. It’s hard to sit in the PNWS offices when he’s already had her against the wall, on the desks, on the carpet – everywhere he looks, there are phantom memories of things that never happened but still haunt him. His dreams are stubbornly refusing to _stay_ dreams, but are still too insubstantial to provide any kind of relief. It’s the worst of all possible worlds.

“Dr. Strand?”

Alex pushes a folder across the desk towards him. He blinks at her, trying to behave as though he hasn’t spent the past several minutes lost in thought. The folder sitting in front of him is closed; he flips it open and reads the title on the first page. _Oneiromantic Traditions From Antiquity to Modernity_.

“Dream divination,” Alex says, unprompted, even though he knows very well what oneiromancy is. “We’ve got a few e-mails in the inbox from people claiming to have seen the future in their dreams, and I thought you might want to do some background reading – “

“Alex,” he says stiffly. “I know what oneiromancy is. I’ve written papers on it.”

“I _know_ that,” she says, patiently, like she’s speaking to a recalcitrant child. “But our listeners don’t. I was thinking we could do a quick overview before we dive into specific cases, so that they’ve got a sense of background to the topic. That stuff there – “ She nods at the folder, “-  is basically Oneiromancy 101, but it’s still pretty dry. If you could walk me through it, I can rewrite the basic ideas into something easier for a layperson to digest – “

“Dumbing it down, you mean?” he asks. The part of him still attempting a façade of normality knows that he’s being unreasonably snappish. However, given the amount of willpower he is employing to keep from fleeing the room entirely, it’s all he can manage.

Alex frowns at him. “Not everybody has multiple doctorates, Dr. Strand.”

The use of his title is, he’s sure, a pointed reminder. “OF course,” he says, through clenched teeth. He picks up the folder. “I’ll take this home to review it and get back to you. If you could also forward me those e-mails, I could look through them and tell you whether or not they’re a waste of time.”

“You’re just going to call them a waste of time anyway,” she points out, “but okay.” She’s still frowning slightly. Strand thinks he might have given himself away somewhat. “We can meet again next week, same time, same place?”

“Perhaps we should meet at my house instead,” he blurts out. Alex’s eyebrows shoot up. He can’t blame her; he’s never extended such an invitation before and, sans context, his sudden change of heart must seem very odd indeed. “I can have it done by the day after tomorrow, and then you won’t have to – er – book studio space.” It’s a lame excuse, and he knows it; as a full-time producer at PNWS, she has access to as much studio space as she wants. But it’s the best he can come up with on short notice.

“I . . .” Alex gives him a searching look. He keeps his face carefully blank. “Okay, I guess.”

“I’ll speak to you soon, then,” he mutters, and flees.

It’s not surprising that he has another dream that night. It _is_ a surprise – and an unpleasant one, at that – that this dream has moves from the studios to his own living room, as his dream-self bends Alex backwards over the arm of the couch, nestled between her legs, lapping at her with his tongue while her thighs press close around his ears. He wakes to find himself hard, again, and despairs of being able to escape this infernal torment.

 

* * *

 

As promised, Alex forwards him the e-mails before she comes over two days later. They’re about what he expected; several people claim to have had vague visions of cataclysmic events, some offer tips on missing persons cases, and another relates the story of being confronted with an illusory angel that relayed the results of the 2020 presidential election. None offer much in the way of proof, and Strand quickly grows to suspect that his conversation with Alex will run much as she predicted: none of these people are worth her time. He doesn’t need a prophetic dream to know that.

Still, when she shows up at the door, he lets her in. She’s dressed somewhat down from what she usually wears in the studio – running shoes instead of flats, and a backpack slung over her shoulders rather than a purse. She’s also wearing leggings and an oversized sweater, and her hair is lightly frosted with raindrops. 

He finds himself wanting to run his hands through it, and jams both offending appendages in his pockets so as to avoid giving in to the temptation.

Alex makes herself at home quickly, spreading her documents across his coffee table in a haphazard jumble. “I was thinking we should start with famous historical examples,” she says, tapping her pencil eraser against the table. “Or mythological examples, if you prefer – things from literature, religious texts. I’ve got a couple of examples from the Odyssey, one from Gilgamesh, a couple from the Bible – that one’s actually a pretty long list, so I wasn’t sure which one to pick. Maybe whichever one people would be most familiar with?”

“Mmm,” he says. He’s seated next to her, though he’s careful not to let their knees brush together. “We might want to pull from both the Old and New Testaments. Solomon is one example, as well as the Book of Daniel, and Joseph in Genesis.”

“Right.” Alex hums, singing lightly under her breath. “ _Sha la la Joseph you're doing fine, you and your dreams are ahead of your time_.”

Strand frowns at her, and she laughs. “ _Joseph and the Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat_. You’ve never seen it?”

“I have not,” Somehow even her quoting Andrew Lloyd Weber does not banish the image of dream-Alex from his mind.

“Too bad,” she says, turning back to the folder. “It’s fun. My mom took me to see it at the Paramount when I was little. Anyway, Sei Shōnagon also wrote about dream divination in _The Pillow Book_. And of course, there’s Freud . . .”

Of course, there is Freud. Strand thought he had hated the man in his undergrad years, but it’s nothing compared to the loathing he feels now. Freud was unable to conceptualize anything in terms other than sexual, but even he would be amazed at Strand’s current predicament; he always insisted on symbolism. Strand’s dreams are, unfortunately, quite literal.

“Freud assigned meaning to dreams based on whatever point he already intended to prove,” he bites out. “His analysis was fatally flawed because he never approached his subject matter objectively. If he wanted to see Oedipal symbols, then he would see them whether they existed or not.”

Alex laughs again. “Fair enough. Did you know he said that dreaming about your teeth falling out meant that you were afraid of being castrated?” She turns the next page over. “I wonder what he thought of women who dreamed of losing teeth. Oh, and he was _really_ into fruit representing breasts.”

Indeed, he had been. Had Freud not been writing prior to the invention of breast implants, Strand might have suggested that his views sprung from overexposure to pornography; certainly, real breasts did not conform to the perfect curvature of peaches and apples. Then again, given Strand’s current state – and the fact that, if he leans only an inch or two forward, he’d be able to see down the front of Alex’s shirt – he can _almost_ (almost) sympathize with the man. When sex is on the brain, it’s difficult to divest one’s thoughts of lecherous intent. But Strand has yet to build an entire school of philosophy around his own oversexed state. He at least still has that.

Alex shifts on the couch, and her shirt slides further down. He doesn’t have to lean forward to get a good view anymore – the slope of her cleavage is bared to his vision. He stands abruptly. “Excuse me for a moment.”

Alex looks up, startled. “Is something wrong?”

He scrambles for an excuse. “No, not at all. I’m – I merely – “

“Because you’ve been acting _weird_ ,” she says, straightening her spine. “Today, and yesterday at the station. Is something bothering you? Because we don’t have to work on this right now, if there’s something else – “

“Alex,” he says. Once again, his tone is harsher than he intends. “There is nothing bothering me. I’m perfectly alright.”

Her eyes narrow. “Then why do you keep snapping at me?”

“I – well – “ He withers under her glare. “If you must know, I’ve not been sleeping well lately. I know that it may have made me more – irritable than usual.”

Her face softens. “I feel that,” she says, mouth twisting slightly. “I can’t seem to get a good night’s sleep either.” She pokes at the file in front of her. “Ironic that we’re talking dreams, huh? Seeing as how neither of us can have any.”

He sits gingerly on the edge of the couch. “Indeed.”

She leans back against the cushions, regarding him thoughtfully. “Are you sure you don’t want to put this off? We can do it later, if you’re really too tired.”

“I’m not too tired,” he says. “By all means, carry on.”

So she does. By the end of the evening, the notes have been organized neatly into three pages, and another three pages are dedicated to a basic outline of Alex’s next episode. It’s fascinating, in an odd way, to watch her work; he’s intimately familiar with the ins and outs of preparing an academic presentation, but he has virtually no experience writing for the general public. Watching her craft the basic outline of their notes into a narrative that audiences will be able to follow without getting lost in obscure references or technical jargon reminds him that there is life outside the university circuit – a less interesting (to him) life, but life nonetheless.

By the time they’re done, they’re both yawning. Strand had poured out glasses of wine earlier in the evening, which almost certainly did not help. Now he’s slumping further and further down against the arm of the couch, trying to keep his eyelids from drooping shut with the sandy weight dragging them down. Out of the corner of his half-open eye, he can see Alex engaged in a similar struggle. He opens his mouth to suggest that they retire for the evening, but all that comes out is a yawn.

“Mmm’hmm,” Alex mutters in agreement. He thinks she might say something else, but that’s when he loses his battle with fatigue, and his eyes slide shut for good.

This night’s dream is – surprisingly – a good deal tamer than the ones he’s been experiencing lately. It still prominently features Alex, and she is in a state of near-complete undress, but that’s where the eroticism ends; instead, she’s simply curled up under his arm, her head resting on his chest. There’s no real narrative to this dream, just the peaceful sensation of her breath rising and falling, the warm weight of her, the ineffable sense of peace. For once, when the dream ends, he isn’t left with an overwhelming sense of frustration or embarrassment – rather, he feels almost refreshed.

When he opens his eyes, it takes him a moment to adjust to the soft darkness of the room. When he remembers where he is, he sits up, pushing his glasses back to their original position on the bridge of his nose. He’s not sure how long he slept – he left his watch upstairs – but the lack of light outside indicates that it must have been at least a few hours. When he looks around, he sees Alex sprawled at the other end of the couch. Her knees are curled up against her chest, her head pillowed on her arms. She’s still asleep. He’s debating whether or not to wake her when she first makes a sound.

“Mmmmm,” she says. He freezes, wondering if he’s unintentionally woken her, but then she shifts in her sleep and he understands – she’s not waking up. She’s dreaming. She murmurs wordlessly again, and something in her tone makes Strand tense. It doesn’t sound like the kind of vocalizations that would spring from a nightmare, or even a run-of-the-mill nonsense dream. It sounds like -

“ _Mmmmmm_ ,” she says, toes curling. Her lips part as she exhales softly, then sucks another abrupt breath in. There’s no doubt left in his mind as to the content of her dreams; if the sounds she’s making weren’t enough of an indication, the look on her sleeping face puts any further ambiguity to bed. Part of him wants to flee upstairs, leave Alex to her nocturnal imaginings, and pretend that none of this ever happened. Of course he’s already aroused by the thought of what she’s seeing – who occupies her dreams, he wonders – but that is an issue he can take care of himself.

Still, the thought of leaving Alex to have a sex dream on his couch is unconscionable. He knows very well he’d never be able to forget it, or to get any sleep while she’s dreaming amorous dreams just a flight of stairs away. He puts a hand on her ankle and shakes gently. “Alex?”

She jerks suddenly, blinking wide eyes in his direction. “Dr – Dr. Strand?”

“You were dreaming,” he says, though he’s sure she could figure that out on her own. “We must have both fallen asleep. I only just woke up myself.”

She pushes herself upwards on the couch. “I haven’t dreamed,” she says slowly, “in awhile.” She gives him a look he can’t interpret. “It seemed real.”

There’s nothing he can really say to that, so he stands to leave, hoping the semidarkness disguises the state he’s in. “It’s far too late for you to drive home,” he says, “so you may as well sleep on the couch. I don’t mind – “

Her hand shoots out, grabbing his wrist in a surprisingly vice-like grip. “Wait.”

He freezes. Looks at her. She looks back at him, her earlier ambiguous expression replaced with something far more tangible. She pulls on his wrist. “Stay. With me.”

“I – “ he says, but he can think of nothing to finish the sentence with; no excuse he can come up with on the shortest of notice will suffice, not when he desperately wants to take her up on her offer. The look in her eyes says she knows it, too. She pulls him down with another quick tug, and then he’s sprawled out on top of her, one knee digging into the couch cushion. She runs her hands up his sides, underneath his shirt, and the touch sends sparks across every one of his nerve endings. She shifts under him so that her legs are spread, a knee on either side, and pulls him down for a kiss. Unlike in that first dream, she doesn’t smell of patchouli; instead she smells of plain deodorant and Thai food and the wine they’d been drinking earlier. In its own way, the bouquet is intoxicating. It helps that he can now dig his hands into Alex’s hair, rake his fingers across her shoulders and down to her breasts – they are nothing Freud ever imagined, and he prefers it that way – travelling the planes of her stomach, the sharp jut of her hipbones, the curve of her thighs. She runs her hands all over him in turn, pushing his shirt up and out of the way so that it ends up rucked up around his shoulders, grabbing at his hips so that she can grind closer against him. He returns the favour by disposing of her shirt, then reaching down to unbutton his pants and hers. Her eyelashes flutter against her cheek as she hisses, wrapping one arm around his back so that he’s held in place. With one quick flip, she launches them both over and on to the floor so that she’s not on top, straddling him. Her eyes glitter. 

He thinks she might be about to reach down and remove their underwear, the last standing barrier between them, but instead she moves upward until she has a knee on either side of his head. Then he understands what she intends.

There’s no point in trying to get rid of her underwear altogether, so he just uses one finger to push the crotch aside before licking up into her. She cries out, back bowing as she braces her hands on the floor in front of her. She rocks back and forth on his face as he probes at her with his tongue, punctuating every movement with harsh gasps that fill the air around him. Her musk is all around him, filling his nostrils, and it’s heavenly. His dreams were never so good, nor so real. He grabs hold of her hips to keep her from moving and licks against her with renewed determination. She growls and pushes herself up and away from him, shimmying backwards. His disappointment is momentary, as she moves down until she’s straddling his waist. He understands now – she’s the one in charge.

She makes quick work of his underwear and hers’, then raises herself up on her knees and sinks down onto him. For a moment, he has to close his eyes – the sensation of it is overwhelming, Alex all around him like he’s dreamed so many times, but somehow – impossibly – real. She raises up again, then sinks down, quickly establishing a rapid rhythm that he’s barely able to keep up with. He tries, though, grasping at her hips and thrusting up to meet each roll of her body. She tips her head back, eyes closed, chest heaving with every breath. Her hair is loose around her face, damp now with sweat instead of rain. For his part, he can feel sweat beading on his forehead, smell the salty musk filling the room, feel the slipperiness of Alex’s skin under his hands. There are so many sensations, it’s hard to concentrate on just one.

His orgasm takes him by surprise, his hips jerking out of his control as Alex stops rocking up and down, clenching her legs tighter around him instead. She follows him seconds later, hoarse cries growing louder, then dying into panting breaths. She takes a moment before rolling off him, coming to a stop when she’s on her back beside him on the floor. Their clothes are in ruins around them, and at least one (empty) wine glass is lying on its side, knocked over in all the frantic motion.

She reaches over and puts a hand on his chest. Automatically, he reaches up to cover it with his own. It’s a tiny point of warmth that radiates out over his whole body. “Tell me,” she says, still slightly breathless, “have you really been having trouble sleeping?”

The question is so unexpected, it startles a laugh out of him. “No,” he says. “Well – yes. No.” He’s certainly had difficulty finding rest, these past few weeks, but it’s not due to any inability to enjoy REM sleep. He’s not entirely sure he wants to say as much to Alex, though.

“I thought so,” she says, though he’s not entirely sure what suspicion of hers he’s just confirmed. “I haven’t either, really. I’ve been having . . . dreams.”

He raises his head to look at her, eyebrows raised. He may have spent the preceding fortnight thinking less logically than normal, but that doesn’t mean he’s prepared to abandon skepticism entirely. “Dreams,” he repeats.

“Yeah, dreams.” She turns to look at him. Her eyes still glitter. “Want to know what about?”

He considers his options. No potential answer seems like a safe one. “I think I can guess,” he ventures, and is rewarded with a smirk on her part.

“I think you can, too.” She rolls over onto her side, curling against him. “Freud would be proud, don’t you think?”

He snorts, some of his old acerbity returning. “I certainly hope not.”

Alex laughs, resting her head on his chest. This, too, he dreamed about. “We can worry about it later,” she says, and closes her eyes. And despite what’s happened – despite the wreck of his living room, their scattered notes, and the possibility Alex just raised that the two of them have been experiencing some form of shared bedtime subconscious – he follows suit, falling, at last, into a dreamless sleep.


End file.
